ARCHAEOLOGY SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON MOSES, KING DAVID, THE EXODUS AND WHETHER JOSHUA REALLY FIT THE BATTLE OF JERICHO

In another part of the world, it would have been a straightforward public-works project. A highway was too narrow to handle the increasing flow of traffic, so the authorities brought in heavy equipment to widen it. Partway through the job, however, a road-leveling tractor uncovered the opening to a cave no one knew was there. Work came to an immediate halt, and within hours a scientific swat team descended on the site to study it.

That's the law in Israel, where civilization goes back at least 5,000 years and where a major archaeological find could be lurking under any given square...